After wearing so many dark and vampy colors in a row, I wanted to lighten things up, while still sticking to a fall palette. American Apparel Rose Bowl is a dusty, peachy rose creme:

Picture taken in natural light. The formula was very pigmented and applied well in two coats. I like the color so much more than I was expecting to! It’s probably because it looks so solid and creamy on the nail, due to the high pigmentation. When I look at it, sometimes it looks more pink, other times more peach. Either way, it’s a very soft, pretty color. I actually think it works for both spring and fall; I could’ve seen myself wearing this in March as well, when I tend to use dusty colors. There’s something about it that says “old-fashioned” to me, but not in a bad way, more like in a vintage way. I feel like this would look great on long, pointy-oval nails. I paired this with Essie Chinchilly on my toes.

After wearing a more unusual, avant-garde color for my last mani, I wanted to go for something in the opposite direction and picked a more traditional color. American Apparel Rouge (Fall 2010) is a dusty, deep rose creme:

Picture taken in sunlight. This applied smoothly and was very pigmented; I needed two coats for full coverage. This kind of color can be seen as matronly but I was surprised at how much I liked it when I put it on! When I think of a “dusty rose” I normally picture a shade that’s lighter, or one that looks more peachy-pink, but this one has a lovely reddish tone, resulting in an overall darker shade. When I look at this I don’t think old-fashioned; I think retro. For me it conjures up images of ’40s cosmetic ads so I can see why it was named after the makeup (Although the first time I saw this I immediately thought of pink pearl erasers). I paired this with Color Club High Society on my toes.

Continuing with the dusty shades for the beginning of March, I’m trying a color that I don’t usually go for. OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes (Holland, Spring 2012) is a dusty rose with subtle peach shimmer:

Picture taken in sunlight. (This is a little pinker in real life; the photo makes it look peachier than it really is.) This applied well; it looked decent at two coats but it’s not super -pigmented so I added a third. I didn’t want to get this at first because it seemed like a “grandma-looking” polish, but based on swatches I’d seen, I was still intrigued by it. Now that I’m wearing it, I’m pleasantly surprised! This one definitely looks better on the nail than in the bottle. It’s a hard color for me to describe; I don’t have many like it in
my collection. I also found it hard to photograph, as it looks different in different lights. Sometimes it looks definitely pinky rose, other times it looks more terracotta-peachy. When I look at it in the sun, it really reminds me of the color of the erasers on the ends of pencils. The shimmer in this is gorgeous. It’s dense in the sense that I can see it all over the nail, but it’s subtle in the sense that I can only really see it in bright light. I wish it was more apparent but I guess the subtlety is just a characteristic of this type of shimmer-in-a-creamy-base formula. I paired this with OPI Barefoot in Barcelona on my toes.

Today I felt like doing another French manicure (not like that, hehe). OPI We’ll Always Have Paris Suede (Suede, Fall 2009) is a purplish rose packed with silver microshimmer:

Picture taken in natural light. This applied well, like the two other suedes I’ve tried. I got full coverage in two coats. This one looks particularly pretty topcoated. I paired it with OPI Glove You So Much! on my toes.

This is another polish I like not just for the color, but the name as well. I really, really love Paris (and France as a whole, really). The architecture is absolutely gorgeous (quite different from where I live), I enjoy the food very much, and I just adore the atmosphere. It’s cool that no buildings in the city are allowed to be made taller than the Eiffel Tower; it creates a stunning landscape. And there’s so many things to do and see…ahh I wanna go back! (Haha, I totally sound like some sort of travel brochure but I just love the place that much!)